MARSHALL STUDIOS
I spent the day in my apartment reading and writing so have little to report. But during the morning I made a visit the few hundred yards to the Studios on the Island in the middle of the French Broad River which was once the Marshall High School before the consolidation of schools all across the United States when this local high school moved up the to Highway 25/70 and children were bussed from all over the county in yellow school buses. There are no yellow school buses in Winsen, students travel to the Gymnasium, central elite high school, in Celle by public transportation, bus or train. The only other place I’ve seen many school buses is the to the many private schools in India, where students are also often transported by bicycle rickshaws with two rows of benches in a compartment at the back. The only other place where I have seen yellow school buses is in American Samoa in the middle of the Pacific, a very odd American influence.
The Studios on the Island were flooded badly during Helene when the ground floor was filled with mud so that all the flooring had to be removed. Fans are still drying out the building 9 months later. But the second floor was untouched. The former classrooms are now all artists studios. Marshall has a large artist community with the studios being a central point.
Yesterday I stopped by to see what a group of women that Susie is a part of were doing. They come once a week to sit around a long table to make things and to talk.
Today I went to look at the frame of a tea tent that Primrose is putting up in one of the studios. Primrose is from England and not only makes paintings and drawings but also is an accomplished carpenter. She has done much of the renovation of her own little house high above Marshall. Here she designed and cut the wooden pieces for the framework of a tea tent which she and a helper were putting together. When done it will be a very colorful spot in which to have a cup of tea. Growing up in India, under the influence of the British colonizers, we had “tea”, both in boarding school and when at home, every afternoon at 4 with sandwiches and sweet milky tea so I am eager for the tea tent to open. My daughter Susie was helping her. Her son, Kestrel, and friends stopped by as they roamed the town on their summer vacation.
In the back of the studios, nine months after the flood, a church group of young people from the state of Missouri were continuing the project of digging the mud away from the building. Eight months ago I photographed the volunteers from all over the Southeast who were helping Marshall dig out of the mud that swamped the town. Their photographs are now on the wall in Zadie’s restaurant and MAD Brewery and Pizzaria. But here were more volunteers, very earnest and enthusiastic, a church group sent by God, they said, and very welcome.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 